To know something of the circumstances which caused this letter to reach Mrs. Haskell like a ghost out of the past, we shall have to betake ourselves to Bennett’s Fresh Confectionery and Ice Cream Parlor on Main Street in Bridgeboro, New Jersey. And that is by no means a bad sort of place to begin, for Bennett had the genial habit of filling an ice cream cone so that the cream stood up on top like the dome on the court house in Bridgeboro, and extended down into the apex, packed tight and hard.

It was long before the great sensation in Hicksville, and on a certain pleasant day early in vacation, that Roy Blakeley, leader of the Silver Fox Patrol, and several scouts of the First Bridgeboro Troop were lined up along Bennett’s counter partaking of refreshment. To be exact, they had finished and were waiting for Walter, alias Pee-wee Harris to finish, for Pee-wee had the true scout thoroughness and went down to the very bottom of things.

“How is it you boys aren’t off camping this summer?” Mr. Bennett asked sociably, as he leaned against the fixtures behind the counter.

“We should worry about camp this year,” Roy said. “We’ve been fixing up our old railroad car for a meeting-place down by the river and we’re going to stay home and earn some money to buy a rowboat and a canoe and start a kind of a camp of our own down there.”

“We’re going to build a float,” Pee-wee said, digging with his spoon.

“Sure, and a sink,” Roy said, “so we can wash our hands of Bridgeboro. We’ll be dead to the world down there. We’re going to lead the simple life like a lot of simps. We’re going to catch salt fish in the salt marshes and everything. All we need is a treasury; you didn’t happen to see one around anywhere, did you?”

“If I should happen to see a treasury I’ll let you know,” Mr. Bennett laughed.

“We need a standing capital,” said Artie Van Arlen, leader of the Ravens.“We wouldn’t care if it was lying down as long as we had it,” Roy said.

“We’d like some assessments,” Pee-wee said.

“You mean assets,” Doc Carson laughed.

“It’s the same only different,” said Roy.

“What we want is a few standing capitals, and some small letters and a couple of surpluses.”

“Deficits are good; did you ever hear of those?” Pee-wee asked.

“We need about eighty-five cents and fifty dollars,” Roy said. “I guess we’ll start a drive only we haven’t got any horse. Maybe we can catch some goldfish down there and sell them for old gold. We should worry.”

Mr. Bennett said, “Well now, you scouts ought to be able to raise some funds. You seem to raise pretty nearly everything else.”

“We raise the dickens,” Grove Bronson said.

“We ought to be able to sell some stock,” Roy said. “We’ve got some rolling stock down there–one car. Only it doesn’t roll. Who wants to buy some stock in the Riverside Scout Camp? Watered stock, we dip it in the river.”

“You don’t know what watered stock is; you’re so smart,” Pee-wee sneered.“Sure, it’s milk,” Roy said. “Right the first time, no sooner said than stung.”

“Never laugh at poverty,” Westy said, as all the party began to shout. “We’re poor but dishonest.”

“Sure,” Roy ejaculated, “we wouldn’t even steal a cent, that’s why we haven’t any sense; deny it if you dare.”

“We can sell papers at the station,” Westy said.

“Sure, the Saturday Evening Post,” Roy said. “We can do golden deeds and get gold that way. We should bother our young lives. What care us, quoth we? We’ll think of a way. All we need is fifty dollars to put tar-paper on the roof and a new cook stove in the car.”

“Money talks,” the kid shouted.

“Good night!” said Roy, “then we don’t want any of it. You do enough talking in this troop.”

“Are you fellows all one outfit?” asked a young man who had been leaning against the opposite counter, amused at their talk.

“United we stand, divided we sprawl,” Roy said. “There are more of us, too, only they’re not here. They’re by the river.”“I can give you a chance to earn some money if you really want to,” the young man said. “Do you think you could stick?”

“Our middle name is fly-paper,” Roy informed him.

“Like camping?”

“Camping is named after us,” Connie Bennett of the Elk Patrol said. “We’d rather camp than eat.”

“No we wouldn’t,” vociferated Pee-wee Harris.

“What kind of hours?” Doc Carson of the Ravens inquired.

“The usual kind,” Roy volunteered, and put it up to their new friend if this were not so. “The same kind we use in school, hey?” he added.

“Give him a chance to tell us what it is,” said Westy Martin of Roy’s patrol. “We all started saying we’d like to earn some money; talk is cheap.”

“Sure, that’s why we use so much of it,” said Roy. “If it cost anything we couldn’t afford it.”

“Well,” said the young man, “I’ve got a job and I need help. It’s outdoors and it means camping and living rough. It means cooking our own meals. You could get a little money out of it; not much, but a little.”

Perhaps it was what the stranger said, perhaps the way he said it, but something caused them all to turn and stare at him.

He was a young fellow of about twenty-three or four and of very shabby appearance. The threadbare suit which he wore must have seen long service and either it had never been a very trim fit or he had lost flesh. His face, indeed, seemed to imply this, being thin and pale, and there was a kind of haunting look in his eyes.

But his demeanor was creditable, he seemed quite free of any taint of the shiftlessness which his appearance might have suggested, and his amusement at the scouts’ bantering nonsense was open and pleasant. Mr. Bennett contemplated him with just a tinge of dubiousness in his look. But the scouts liked him.

“What’s the nature of the work?” Mr. Bennett asked.

The young man seemed a trifle uneasy at being directly questioned but no one would have said it was more than the diffidence which any sensitive young fellow might show towards strangers.“It’s taking down two or three buildings,” he said; “just shacks. My name is Blythe.”

“Here in town?”

“No, up at the old camp.”

“Oh, you mean Camp Merritt? I heard the government sold the whole shebang. What are they doing? Putting gangs to work up there?”

“I’ll help you tear down Camp Merritt!” Pee-wee shouted.

“No, they’re just giving the jobs out piecemeal,” the young man said amid the general laughter. “Anybody that wants to tear a building down can get permission. They give so much a building. I undertook three. If I could get some help and do it in a month or so I’d have a little money. I haven’t got anybody so far. I suppose that’s because it’s out of the way.”

“Oh, then you don’t work for the wrecking concern?” Mr. Bennett queried.

“Only that way,” the stranger said.

“You belong hereabouts?”

“N–no.”

“Anybody else working up there?”

“Not now.”“I suppose these youngsters could get a commission to haul down several buildings themselves if they wanted to?” Mr. Bennett inquired. “Cut out the middle man, huh?”

The young fellow seemed a trifle worried. “I–I didn’t think of that,” he said; “I guess they could. But I don’t want much out of it myself,” he added, in a voice that had almost a note of pleading in it; “and I picked out the easiest shacks. They’d–I’d be willing–they’d get most of the money. Beggars can’t be choosers. I’m out of work–I–”

“And it’s best for youngsters to have a boss, eh?” Mr. Bennett added, genially. “Well, I guess you’re right. Somebody to keep them out of mischief.”

The scouts and their new friend strolled out onto Main Street and, pausing there in a little group, continued talking.

“If you think we’re the kind to get an idea from you and then go and use it and leave you out, you’re mistaken,” said Connie Bennett.

“The camp isn’t mine,” their new friend said, hesitatingly.“No, but that particular job is yours,” Westy Martin insisted, “and we’re on that job, if we go there at all.”

“That’s a good argument,” Pee-wee ejaculated.

“Are you staying up there?” Connie asked.

The stranger seemed pleased, even relieved. That uncertain, diffident smile hovered for a moment about his mouth. “I’d treat you right, that’s sure,” he said. “It’s pretty hard for a fellow to get work. I just sort of stumbled into this–”

“Well, I’m glad you stumbled into us, too,” said Roy, a note of sympathy and sincerity in his voice that there was no mistaking. “We’ll have to speak to our mothers and fathers, but don’t you worry, we have them trained all right. We have cooking outfits and everything, too. We’ll take a hike up there to-morrow. We’d like to make some money, but gee whiz, that isn’t the only thing we care about. Camping and all that–that’s what we like. Don’t we, Westy?”

“Where can we find you up there?” Westy asked.“You go up the Knickerbocker Road and right in through the old entrance,” Blythe said. “The second shack you come to on your left is where I’m bunking. You’ll see me around somewhere.”

“You do your own cooking?” Artie Van Arlen asked him.

“Yes, but I’m not much of a cook,” Blythe said. “I–I don’t–I won’t get anything till the work’s finished–”

“You should worry about that,” Roy said.

“I guess I can eat most anything,” Blythe.

“Can you eat as many as eleven?” Pee-wee laughed.

“Can you eat as many as eleven?” Pee-wee demanded.

That same elusive, half-bashful, pleasant smile lingered on the stranger’s lips again as he said, “–I guess–not–”

“Then I can beat you,” Pee-wee announced conclusively.

“Here comes the bus,” Westy said. “Do you go up in that?”

“I guess I’ll walk,” Blythe said.

“Well, we’ll be up there to-morrow, sure,” Doc Carson reassured him; “some of us anyway. Even if we don’t come to stay we’ll be up there, so you look for us.”

“I’m fair and square,” Blythe said. “When you come you can look the place over and then say–”

“You should worry about that,” Roy interrupted him.

“Maybe your people–”

“You leave our people to us,” Roy said. “My father believes in camping and fun–he inherits that from me. Scouts know how to pick out fathers all right.”

Their new friend smiled again, with a kind of simple pleasure at Roy’s nonsense, “I’ll look for you,” he said. Then they parted.

“He’s got some walk all the way up to Camp Merritt,” Doc Carson said. “Do you suppose he hasn’t any money?”

“Looks that way,” said Westy.

“I kind of like him,” Doc said. “I guess he’s in hard luck all right. I’m glad we met him.”

“I’m the one that did it,” Pee-wee shouted. “Didn’t I say for us all to go into Bennett’s? Now you see!”“All we have to do is to follow you,” Roy said, “and adventures come around wanting to eat out of our hands.”

“And I–I’m the one to show you where there’s money too,” Pee-wee said. “I’m a capital or whatever you call it.”

“You’re the smallest capital I ever saw,” Roy said.